She looked down at herself and shuddered.
"I'll go if it's the last thing I do," she said. "You can save your
breath."
The car was all but empty. The girl sat staring, dry-eyed, straight
before her. A dirty old woman, seeing the set face and blood-stained
dress, leaned eagerly across the aisle.
"Has the young lady been hurt?" she wheezed.
"None of your business," said Miss Malloy. And the old woman subsided
at this shaft of plain truth.
Our ride was half completed when my companion began to speak, in a
broken monotone. She addressed no one in particular. If was as though
conscience spoke through unconscious lips.
"And I've been foolin' with him just like all the rest--I thought it
was smart! I never knew, for sure, till back there, and now _he'll_
never know . . . he'll not hear me when I tell it to him." Suddenly
the monotone grew shrill. "_He'll never hear nothing of what Eve found
out_!"
"Quiet! Quiet!" I said, and took her hand. "He's only hurt. The
doctors will bring him around all right."
"No," she said. "I've been foolin' with him. I've been wicked and
mean, and it's been sent to punish me."
A house surgeon and the engulfing odor of iodoform met us at the door
of the emergency ward, whither we were led by a nurse.
"We can't tell anything before tomorrow," answered the surgeon to my
question. "The pulse is fairly strong, and that means hope."
"I must see him," the girl stated.
"Sorry," said the surgeon, shaking his head.
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